Natural Reserve SystemUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

The UC Natural Reserve System provides a

library of ecosystems throughout California.

Reserves offer outdoor laboratories to field

scientists, classrooms without walls for

students, and nature’s inspiration to all.

Founded in 1965 to provide a network of

wildland sites available for scientific study,

the NRS has grown to include more than

40 locations encompassing more than

756,000 acres across the state.

The NRS is the world’s largest university-

operated system of natural reserves; no

other network of field sites can match its

size, scope, and ecological diversity.

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Berkeley1 Angelo Coast Range Reserve2 Blue Oak Ranch Reserve3 Chickering American River Reserve4 Hastings Natural History

Reservation 5 Jenny Pygmy Forest Reserve6 Sagehen Creek Field Station

Davis7 Bodega Marine Reserve8 Jepson Prairie Reserve9 McLaughlin Natural Reserve

10 Quail Ridge Reserve11 Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve

Irvine12 Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve13 San Joaquin Marsh Reserve14 Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego

Desert Research Center

Los Angeles15 Stunt Ranch Santa Monica Mountains Reserve16 White Mountain Research Center

MercedSierra Nevada Research Stations: 17 Merced Vernal Pools and

Grassland Reserve18 Yosemite Field Station

Riverside19 Box Springs Reserve20 Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center21 Emerson Oaks Reserve22 James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve23 Motte Rimrock Reserve24 Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center

San Diego25 Dawson Los Monos Canyon Reserve26 Elliott Chaparral Reserve27 Kendall-Frost Mission Bay Marsh Reserve28 Scripps Coastal Reserve

Santa Barbara29 Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve30 Coal Oil Point Natural Reserve31 Kenneth S. Norris Rancho Marino Reserve32 Santa Cruz Island Reserve33 Sedgwick Reserve

Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserves: 34 Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory35 Valentine Camp

Santa Cruz36 Año Nuevo Island Reserve37 Fort Ord Natural Reserve38 Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve39 Younger Lagoon Reserve

Natural Reserve Systemuniversity of california

1111 Franklin St., 6th FloorOakland, CA 94607-5200nrs.ucop.edu

Reserves are listed by administering campus

UC Davis Reserves

Jepson Prairie Reserve

Bodega Marine Reserve

McLaughlin Natural ReserveLocated at a former gold mine, McLaughlin Natural Reserve protects unusual serpentine habitats. Oak woodlands are interspersed with serpentine and non-serpentine chaparral in a mosaic that includes pristine habitats, rangelands, and reclaimed mining areas.

An island of remnant Central Valley prairie amid a sea of farmland, Jepson Prairie Reserve comes alive with winter rains. Natural clay-lined vernal pools fill, drawing breeding California tiger salamanders and rousing tadpole and fairy shrimp to hatch. Native wildflowers bloom in rainbow rings around drying pools through spring.

Tidepools give way to beaches, active dunes, marsh, and coastal prairie at Bodega Marine Reserve. Harbor seals, shorebirds, and a wide array of marine invertebrates live here year round. A stretch of the San Andreas Fault and the facilities of UC’s Bodega Marine Laboratory help make the reserve a magnet for scientists of many disciplines.

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UC Davis

Stebbins Cold Canyon ReserveStebbins Cold Canyon is nestled within the dry ridges of the northern Coast Range. A riparian woodland lines the banks of its intermittent stream, while the canyon rises on either side through habitats that include chaparral, blue oak woodland, and grasslands.

Quail Ridge ReserveThe waters of Lake Berryessa surround the peninsula of Quail Ridge Reserve. Rare native grasses and diverse oak woodlands cloak its steep slopes. Isolation has kept out many weeds, giving stands of native purple needlegrass, junegrass, and California oniongrass room to flourish. Precipitous terrain plus freedom from electromagnetic noise makes the reserve an ideal site to test environmental sensor and wirelss mesh networks.

Natural Reserve SystemUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

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